Nokia N8 Is Beefy with Moments of Genius Design: iFixit

by Michelle Maisto

The Nokia N8 smartphone, which began shipping Sept. 30, is the latest victim of a teardown by iFixit. The repair site's team went to work with its Torx screwdriver to offer a look inside Nokia's new flagship smartphone. In all, the iFixit team gave the N8 high marks. They were impressed with several design decisions, including Nokia's "creative" placement of the device's antennas (you may recall, creative antenna placement got Apple into trouble with the iPhone 4) and its EMI (electromagnetic interference) shields, which protect the phone's chips from interference. The N8's 12-megapixel camera, which Nokia paired with the type of flash normally found in a full-size camera, also impressed. Shipping unattached to a carrier, and so without the obligation of a service contract, the N8which runs the new Symbian 3 OSis priced at approximately $500. "Betting the farm on the success of the N8," iFixit reported on its site, "Nokia has packed this phone full of awesome features." (All photos are courtesy of iFixit.com.)

Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.